


Inconceivable

by horselizard



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Alternate Universe - Trans, Canon Compliant, Episode Related, F/M, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Mpreg, Pregnancy, Realistic Depictions of Being Trans, Season/Series 02, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 16:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1989528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horselizard/pseuds/horselizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A reworking of a scene from "Parallel Universe". At first glance, nothing is any different from what we're shown in the episode. Lister knows otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inconceivable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notalwaysweak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/gifts).



> As with so many other things, this is notalwaysweak's fault. :P

“I hope you get pregnant.”

Lister suppressed a snort. Little did she know. There was no chance of that happening.

“I hope you get pregnant, you cheap little tart.”

He stared disbelievingly up into her smug hologrammatic face. There was no way she could know. _His_ Rimmer didn't know. How on earth could she have found out? She wouldn't even have understood if she had...

“But that's impossible! I haven't got the, eh, equipment.”

Well, he had. But it couldn't still be functional after five years of hormone therapy. Could it?

“Course you have. You're in our universe. Our physical laws apply.”

Panic slowly crept through him. He hoped to smegging hell that she was right about that. He couldn't remember much of what they'd done, but... you couldn't be too careful. And they certainly hadn't.

Deb couldn't get it up any more, of course, not with the changes her body had undergone, but – like him – she was more than willing to make use of what fate had given her, if it felt good. And, drunk though they were, they had spent a very long time exploring all the possible ways of making each other, and themselves, feel good. Without washing their hands in between.

It was an outside chance. A million-to-one chance. But then, what had been the odds of him ending up as the last human being alive, three million years away from Earth?

...Three million years away from the cryogenic facility where he'd solemnly stored one last precious batch of eggs, just before starting his treatment. Just before his twenty-first birthday. Yeah, he'd wanted to be a dad _some_ day, _some_ way. Just not now. Just not like this.

_Why_ not?

His mouth went on autopilot as the others chuntered away, mocking and insensitive and infuriatingly chirpy in their turns, none of them having the slightest idea of the painful wounds they were pouring salt into. (Except Deb, of course – and her glib attitude was beginning to make him suspect, to his dismay, that she had a better idea of how parallel biology worked than Arlene.) He could hardly even bring himself to care. He couldn't stop glancing down at himself, at the body with which he had made an uneasy peace five years ago, the body which had always scared him with its potential. But he had never been one to turn away when he was scared.

He forced himself to sense it, the germ of life which might be taking hold inside him. The miracle he'd always distantly hoped for – whether in his body or another's. Yeah, he could do this. He could come off the injections, just for nine months. (He stroked his smooth chin thoughtfully, and joked wryly to himself that they'd never done that much for him anyway.) If it was his only chance of having a child, then whatever the sacrifices, whatever the stresses, whatever the risks, he could do it. He _would_ do it.

Maybe, just maybe, he was going to be a father.

But as for the smegging skutters doing the caesarean... Christ. Even _he'd_ sooner give birth naturally.


End file.
